Einstein has been adopted!

Great news--

The Clark family from Manhattan Beach has adopted Einstein and he's been with them for several days now. After the first full day they called to say how well he is doing. He is warming up to them much more quickly than any of us had even hoped.

The Clarks have three children, aged 23, 13 and 5. We were worried about the fit with the 5 year old, but she has been wonderful. We explained Einstein's previous negative experience with a child her age, and she took it as her personal mission to show him that not all kids are going to scare him. With patience and some cheddar cheese, she won him over quickly.

We have MANY Shelties who need rescuing, so if you are interested in considering adopting a Sheltie, please click on the link over on the right side of the page. I recently learned that the Sheltie Rescue group often matches up a new dog with a prospective owner waiting in the applicant file and the dog may not even go up on the website. This group places over 300 Shelties a year. It's shocking that so many dogs end up needing to be rescued out of shelters or rehomed. There is nothing wrong with this breed, and in Northern California we didn't have this kind of volume. I think there are some "backyard breeders" producing a lot of dogs in this warmer climate down here. Anyway, we would love to work with you to help match you up with a wonderful Sheltie.

We also need foster homes. If you would consider being a rescue foster home, we would love to hear from you.

Thank you!

Another breakthrough

E has been with us for almost 4 weeks. Usually his morning routine is he wants to be petted but won't come all the way up to me without me telling him to sit and then giving him a treat.

This morning, I could tell he wanted to come up to me, but when I'd turn to him he'd trot away, and trot around the dining room table, coming close to me each time but not explicitly coming up to be petted.

I was in my bathroom getting ready for work, and he came to the door-- again, the "I want to come up to you" vibe. I sat on the edge of the tub and one dog came up for pets. And so did E. No coaxing, no "sit" routine, he just came all the way up to me for a little scratching on his chest. It's a small thing, but a big thing at the same time.

Also, in the mornings he is very playful and wants to engage in play. He tries to get this started by acting all prancy and happy and then barking at me. I don't want the barking part, it's early in the morning and my neighbors will not be OK with that. I immediately turn away from him. If that doesn't stop it, which so far it kinda doesn't, I immediately go into the other room and shut the door, leaving him dumbfounded. After about 10 seconds, I open the door like nothing happened. This interruption of the barking is important. If I had more time to work with this in the morning, I'd wait for the moment when he stopped barking, and would C/T the quiet. The only time we have this barking is when we arrive home and he's greeting us, and when he's trying to play (or when my other dogs are wrestling and playing, and he's trying to join in, so he barks at them happily while they wrestle).

Also this morning, he proactively jumped onto the sofa to have a 20-min snuggle session with my husband. Dennis loved this, because E has been slower to warm up to him and now E is completely comfortable with him.

More bell work and great progress

We moved back to the door leading outside and worked with the bells the same way we've been doing so for the last day... first on the floor, then hanging from my hand. We're not putting them back on the door, YET. Baby steps. Baby steps.

Working with bells in a new room

This morning before work, I took E into a new room and worked with the bells a bit more. Sorry for the dark video, I didn't realize the light in there was so bad. He did very well, despite the presence of the tripod and camera, which he dislikes. Here you go:

Loving the bells

Hmmm. In our first session tonight, E was touching the target dot behind the bells but when he'd also touch the bell, it would jingle and he'd panic and run away from it. Next training session, he was trying hard to avoid that bell. Uh oh. That's not what we want.

I gave him some "easy wins" and ended the session to think about this some more.

Tonight I realized I needed to help him love the bells by taking them off the door, going into a different room, and teaching him to target them while they're on the floor. So I sat down in a quiet room with some GOOD treats, and he expressed concern that the Evil Bells were there. I went slowly. I handled them in such a way that they only made a little noise, put them down on the carpet, and let him smell my hand. See? That's what bells smell like, OK?

We started the targeting exercise, and by now he knows the game and is moving into it quickly. He'd look at them. I'd C/T. Then I went for the gold. I put little pieces of cheese near the bells. He gobbled them up as I clicked. I put one ON the bell. He gingerly took it as I clicked. I took about 6 little pieces of cheese and tucked them around the bells so he'd have to stick his nose right in there to get them, touching the bells with his nose. He was starting to like this.

I could see his attitude changing. We made good progress and I was running out of the cheese so we stopped, I praised and rubbed him down, and went to the kitchen to reload. (He was also getting tiny cat food bits, and small dog kibbles. I save the cheese bit for a high level of performance, like actually touching the bells).

We went back and I put the bells on the ground again. He seemed spooked again, so we backed up-- a C/T for just looking at the bells. After a few of those, he was off and running again, giving me some really good pushes on those bells. His fear of making them jingle seemed gone. He even whacked 'em with his paw once, good and hard. He got a jackpot for that.

I used the relative value of the treats to communicate my level of pleasure with his performance. A touch resulting in a jingle would definately warrant a cheese treat, and maybe more than one depending on the intensity of the hit. A nose-touch to the thick cord would just get a lower value cat-food bit. He was doing very well!

We took another break. I wanted to evolve to holding the cord in my hand, dangling the bells down so they were hanging. I'm starting to emulate the position they have on the doorknob.

Again, he started out concerned, so we backed up a few steps and "warmed up". Again, he progressed quickly. He was consistently nosing them and making them jingle a bit.

Another break.

This time, I moved the bells to my other hand. He didn't like that. But again, after a brief warm up, he was back in the game. By now, the other dogs were losing their patience and starting to scratch on the door and complain. He was getting distracted so I found a good successful touch, and ended the session with lots of praise and scratches.

After the session, I took him out and he immediately relieved himself. When a dog is eating treats like this, especially when combined with the pressure of a few training sessions, it will usually make him have to go. By the way, it's important to make sure you potty your dog before you start a session, too, so you don't have a dog who is distracted because he kinda has to go.

I did "therapy dog work" at Stanford Hospital when I lived it the Bay Area, and a team of us would go in and give dog visits on a floor for about an hour. We would of course "empty" our dogs before going in, so you'd think they'd be fine. Without fail, as soon as we'd leave we'd head for the grass and all the dogs would have to go. And go. And go. Even though they enjoy the therapy dog work, the pressure of it seems to stimulate the other body functions and I think this applies to any kind of training session. So keep that in mind, if your dog's been concentrating and working hard for you, give him a bio break afterward.

We have one family coming to visit E this weekend. We'll see if it's a good match!

Target dot goes near the jingle bells

We moved the target dot yet again, this time to the door where the jingle bells are. We're going to start slowly moving it behind the bells, to get him to bump the bells.

You'll notice that we "back up" in terms of our criteria-- once again, because we're in a new location, the game feels different to him so we C/T for merely looking at the dot, and it progresses quickly from there. We got our first "bell touch" in this sequence. I chopped it up a bit to make it shorter for you-- the entire session was 15 minutes long. The dot is inched up behind the bells over the course of this session.

Target dot goes onto the wall

Here is Einstein about 40 minutes after the previous post, working the same target dot which has now been moved onto the wall. The environment was very distracting, my dogs were barking, the window shade was flapping and making noise, a car was pulling up out front, and my snoozing husband got irritated with my other barking dog and started to scold him, which I interrupted since that would derail Einstein. So in the midst of all that, here's how he did learning for the first time how to touch the target dot while taped onto a wall.

By the way, dogs have to learn how to generalize, and it doesn't come naturally to them. So just because he knows how to touch the dot on the floor doesn't mean he instantly knows how to do it when it's on the wall. That feels really different to him. With the immediate feedback from my clicker (my tongue click) he quickly gets the idea and this also strengthens his "generalization" muscle a bit.

By the way, he really dislikes the tripod and I'm standing right by it. I'm going to leave the tripod out in the living room and other places so he gets used to it and stops being suspicious of it.

Here we go:

Target training in the hallway

I just figured out how to use my camera to do videos. Here's Einstein clicker-training with the target dot (which is the lid from a coffee can). The idea is to start moving the target dot around, and eventually put it on the wall, and then behind the jingle bells, so I can train him ultimately to ring the jingle bells when he needs to go outside.

If you're new to clicker training, here is a really quick video on the basic concepts.


It's a slow but very effective process. We're still in the early stages. But here you can see E working on this for the first time in a hallway. He has never had a training session in this hallway, so it's a bit weird for him, and in addition there's a large tripod holding my camera, and my camera makes a very high-pitched sound when it starts and stops, and he dislikes that. So he is not himself here, and look how willing he still is to work for me. What a love.

God bless YouTube. This file is big and would eat up so much of my hard disk that if it were not for YouTube, you'd never see videos of E. By the way, I'm usually grabbing opportunities for training in the margins of my busy life, and I try to stay out of the film because I've often just gotten out of the shower and have on sweats with dripping wet hair, etc. That's certainly the case in this one. So forgive me for not showing you more of what I'm doing as a trainer. I'll do that once I have more time to clean up a bit for the camera!

He played with a toy!

The progress we're seeing in terms of E's confidence and happiness is accelerating. Now that he really trusts us, the "real him" is coming out. To my surprise and delight last night, he grabbed a tennis ball and started tossing it and pouncing on it. Then, he turned to a "dog blanket" we use, and started to chew on its fringe. I didn't correct him since I didn't want to shut this down, but I quietly got up and went to our rags and cut off a 2" strip of a rag. I tied a knot in the middle, and brought it back to him and introduced it in a playful manner. He got the idea, and carried it around a bit.

He's seeking out contact, affection and interaction frequently now. This dog is bonding to us strongly. He needs to find his "forever home" soon!

I've rescued a lot of dogs over the years, and I consistently see the same pattern, that it takes about 3 weeks for a dog to exhale and feel safe in a new place. We're at 2 1/2 weeks right now. We're seeing him "come out" and he's bright, intelligent, and sweet.

Our Japanese houseguest is no longer scary to him, though he does not seek out contact with her. If she tries to approach him, he just moves away. She has never done the "routine" with him that we advise at this stage-- sitting on the ground, having some treats for him. But even without that, he came and stood next to her at the breakfast table this morning, ears up, listening to the conversation, not afraid. He just doesn't trust her enough to let her approach him.

He's up on Craiglist now, and I wanted to take videos of him but cannot find our digital camcorder (did it ever get unpacked after our move?).

Doing great....

E is continuing to do very well. He tries to initate play with me, but I don't quite understand the game. What seems to work best at this point is when he jumps up on the sofa and hops and dances and then stops and says "pet me and hold me". He is clueless about toys. I don't think he's ever had one and at this point he doesn't know what to do with them.

Paris (9 yrs old) came over yesterday to help train him and she's so great with him. He was MUCH better with her, and warmed up within 2 minutes, taking treats from her hand, off her knee (we were both sitting on the ground). We started target-training him to nudge the lid of a coffee can (on the ground). I would click and Paris would drop the treat. He is consistently nosing the lid. We're going to evolve this so he noses it no matter where it is, ie, taped onto the wall. Taped behind the ribbon of jingle bells (this is all leading up to teaching him to nudge the jingle bells to ask me to open the door so he can go outside, which is how our own dogs currently do it). Once he nudges through the bells, we'll literally make the target lid slowly disappear, by cutting off a bit each day. We'll also put the ringing on command, and voila, a new desirable behavior.

We went around for a LONG bike ride yesterday, with 2 of my other dogs too. We encountered a lot of scary distractions, and he only really reacted to 2 of them. And he recovered quickly. Took him around again this morning with the other 2, and again, he does just great. The K9 Cruiser is the best thing since sliced bread.

When I get home, he's very excited to see me, and he'd like to stand 12 feet away and bark and play keep away. I am changing this pattern. I ignore him, don't make eye contact (when he does this) and go get treats and start giving treats to my other dogs. He'll come forward, I'll click and give him a treat, we do this a few times and then I ask him to sit, again, I C/T. He cannot run and bark if he is sitting and earning a treat. So rather than fighting the undesired behavior, I set up a situation where he gets rewarded for giving me a desired behavior.

He doesn't bark all day, we've verified this with the neighbors. He will bark when someone comes to the house, when someone walks their dog by the gate (as do my other dogs, too). Neighbors have reassured me that he's not annoying them.

He's blossoming! He's ready!

Einstein has been here 2 weeks now. During that time he:

Adapted to a household of 3 new dogs he didn't know-- never a growl or an argument from any of them. Wonderful.

Adapted to me and my husband, and has learned to not only trust me, but also to climb into my lap, look to me for reassurance when he's scared about something, and he's following my training direction like a champ.

Learned the general toileting area in the yard, and has not had one accident in the house at all!

Enthusiastically begun his obedience training using the "clicker training" method. This method allows me to communicate to him exactly what behaviors I want from him. He is food-motivated and takes the food with a polite, gentle mouth. He is solid on "sit", and is now working on "down", "come" and target training with a target stick.

He's consistently allowed me to push him, in baby steps, out of his comfort zone. He is growing in trust and confidence every day. Yesterday morning we walked down the street and watched a construction project from 2 houses away. Yesterday evening I drove him (with his sitting in the seat, not a crate) to the local market and coffee hangout, where we sat on a bench and watched the cars come and go, the people walk by, etc. So many new experiences. I'm careful to go slowly, and each time, he's been initially scared but with my gentle guidance he settles in. We went over to a quieter lawn in a park and practiced some obedience training in that more-distracting setting. He did beautifully, controlling his keen awareness of (and sometimes concern about) people walking by, traffic, etc.

This dog is blossoming. I am so thrilled to report this because what I'm seeing is that he is not a "permanent wreck" as some dogs can be. This is not a dog who will always be permanently timid. This is not a "special needs" dog-- a "special needs" dog has permanent disabilities. This dog is overcoming his traumatic past. Each time he moves to a new home, he has to rewind a bit and rebuild that level of trust and confidence. Frankly, that's appropriate. But each time, he rebounds a bit faster. His traumatic past is being replaced with enough "positive experience" that it's teaching him how to regroup again. His new owner must not be discouraged by his need to regroup again when he moves to a new home.

The reason I'm keeping this blog is to overcome people's general tendency to make a snap judgment about a dog. I want you to see his progress, and how simple it is to achieve. Trust me, what we're doing here is not rocket science. And we're two busy people who work full time so it's not like I'm dedicating my life to this. Anyone can do this, it's simple, and it's compassionate, and it's effective.

I can see this dog excelling at obedience with the right owner. I can see this dog doing therapy work someday, with the right owner. I can absolutely see this dog being a bright, happy and affectionate pet in a relatively calm household, which is exactly what he is at this stage in our own home.

We already have three dogs, or we'd definitely be keeping this guy. We can honestly say we love him and we are ready to wait for the right permanent, loving and responsible home to come forward for him.

Is that you? Is it someone you might know? We welcome inquiries. Einstein is ready to meet his new home.

Sunday-- houseguest arrives

Sunday was a bit of a bust because we had a houseguest arrive, a woman from Japan. Most of our day was spent picking her up and helping her get settled, and E was uneasy with the new person in the house. Because of the language barrier, she wasn't able to take a lot of direction from us about giving him space and going slowly so we basically let him have a day off, and we didn't do much with him on Sunday. He got a good run on the bike before our guest arrived, but no training.

Saturday evening....

E was inundated with guests Saturday evening. Paris was back (and he warmed up to her quickly again), but we also had a couple (Ethan and Nancy) and their 3 year old daughter, Zada.

Zada is the biggest dog lover in the world. Despite her attempts to be still and quiet, the urge to go kiss him was overwhelming and fortunately it happened about 10 minutes after she arrived so E had some time to get used to her. He was not happy with the new people, and asked to be held. He allowed Ethan to pet him, but didn't enjoy it. He would look at Ethan, though, which is good (ie, he's not so scared that he can't even look). Also, he continued to accept treats (including from Zada). When he's extremely stressed, he won't even accept his favorite treats.

So we're pushing him a bit, making him move out of his comfort zone, but not, as they say, "pushing him off a cliff" in terms of his fear. It's clear he just needs more of all of this.

All else continues to go well, including his inviting both me and Dennis to play (though we have not yet figured out how to play with him-- he doesn't know what to do with toys, and we don't want to encourage barking and "keep away" games.) When he does this, his whole body is energized and inviting, it's very endearing. His facial expression says, "Let's go!"

The different elements of a behavior

It's helpful to think of any behavior as having the following elements:

Distraction in the environment (birds chirping, traffic noise) or in the dog (stress)
Distance (how far away from you can he be and still obey the command? How far can he carry the tennis ball?)
Duration (how many seconds or minutes can he do it?)
Intensity (how hard does he have to push the jingle bells to get them to ring?)
Speed (how quickly does he perform the behavior?)

When we talk about "raising the bar" on a behavior, the truth is that we've got 5 bars, each with their own range of difficulty. So we have to be careful to only raise the criterion of one bar at a time, and when we do, we temporarily relax our requirements for the other ones. Once the new criterion is solidly established, we then work on getting those other elements back where they were. Generally, we want to shape the element of speed last. We want to get the other stuff right before we ask the dog to speed things up.

These concepts apply to all learning situations, by the way, this is not just about dog training. So if you want to improve your golf swing, work on one aspect of it and give yourself a break on the other elements of it while you're learning the new part.

Studying this stuff is fun, it's fascinating, and its immensely applicable in life.

Day 6? Morning..

I'm getting my days mixed up.... since we got him last Sunday today must be our 6th day. Sorry about that.

We noticed he had tapeworms in his stool (which happens if they swallow a flea) so this morning he had a full vet exam and a fecal test and we left with deworming pills. His health is great. He doesn't have fleas, so he must have ingested a flea before last week? Just to be sure we're putting some Advantage on him this weekend.

At the vet, he was terrified in the lobby and tried to crawl under any low table or chair. I held him, which helped. In the room, on the table, he was better until they took his anal temperature but his only reaction was submissive shaking and a "please help me!" look. No attempts to snap or bite, ever. Everyone at the vet's office loved him, and they let me put up a flyer about him. Another flyer is up at Moore's Market in Lunada Bay.

Got him home, and he was still upset about the vet visit and would not come out of his crate in the car. He was insistent, he did not want to come out. I think he wanted to make sure I really got the message. I was not going to force the issue, that isn't a good idea. So I securely tied the end of the leash to the car, and got one of my other dogs to come out to the lawn by the car. That did it, he was suddenly happy again, willing to take a treat. He just needed some reassurance that we were back in a happy place. But it does go to show that he has not been out in public much so I need to get him out more.

Took him around on the K9 Cruiser, and he trotted along beautifully. A neighbor was walking her two dogs, and I did NOT want to pass them, I don't think we're ready for that yet. (It's an unpredictable sitaution, and if her dogs barked and lunged at him, it could ruin his confidence in those situations for a very long time. This shaping stuff is fragile. Better to introduce that kind of risk slowly).

I said hello from about 30 feet away, and made a slow U-turn so we didn't have to pass them. He was a bit concerned about their being behind us (even though they were WAY behind us) and he touched my ankle twice as I was pedaling. He was clearly signaling me, and I was delighted at this clear communication. I talked to him and told him it was OK, good boy. He glanced back once or twice but settled back into the trot. We passed a group of 5 people walking along, no problem (still they were a good 25 feet away). Cars went by. He did really well!

So after the vet visit I wanted to see if he retained the training we'd done this morning and yesterday. He'd been sitting on command (verbal and hand cue combined) 100% of the time. Ears up, happy. After the vet visit, we would expect a regression because he had been stressed. So with my other dogs milling me (a new distraction for a training situation) I cued E to sit, and he seemed to forget. We tried it 2 more times, and voila, it was back. We went inside to a hallway, again, with dogs around, and he sat on cue the first time. Beautiful. We're already working on adding duration to the sit behavior.

All this training of E has resulted in 3 other dogs who are reminding me constantly that it's THEIR turn to be trained, so now I'm having to do short sessions with them too to keep them happy. I'm tuning up their "wait" and "leave it" behaviors. Having dogs who love to train and work is a good problem to have. Thank goodness I have a few books that give me ideas of new tricks to keep them busy. Our latest is "Namaste". I say "Namaste" and put my hands into the yoga-prayer position and bow slightly to the dog. The dog does a deep bow back to me, as if returning the "Namaste".

I've introduced the "come" command to E, in its very beginning phase. All the food he's getting is via training, he is not having meals in addition. This is because I'm doing so much training with him! It allows me to do lots and lots of repetitions but not overfeed him. He weighs 25.3 lbs, by the way.

We're making great progress breaking his pattern of keeping of reach, making it hard to catch him. Keeping him on leash more has helped since that pattern cannot happen when he's on leash, so it gives us the chance to build a new pattern in its place. But even in the toileting area, where he is off leash (in an area now fully enclosed with ex-pens) he comes right up to me when he's done to have the leash put on and to leave the area. Part of this is because the area has small smooth rocks, and he doesn't like that surface. He's wanting to leave as soon as he's done. I'm also clicking and treating when he comes up to me proactively. All of these things combined are creating the new pattern.

Now that his confidence has grown, he's less interested in retreating into his crate every five minutes. So I actually have to lure him into his crate with a treat now when I want him in there. When we first got him, you couldn't keep him out of the crate!

Day 6: evening- Progress!!!

Wow, what a day. I went outside and created an enclosed training space with 2 ex-pens. We worked on "sit" which took him awhile to get (it's a behavior he usually only offers when he's not sure what you want and he's sort of sitting in submission). I saw the lightbulb go on! Soon we were doing it again and again and again. Hooray! So I moved to a new location, which distracted him a bit but he caught back up again. So we moved to another location, and did it some more. Each time you move to a new location you raise the bar a bit. All locations were in the back yard, all only slightly distracting (distractions included a breeze causing the sun umbrellas to rustle and move, background noises, etc).

So I sensed we were on a roll. At the same time, I didn't want to overwhelm him! It's a big training mistake to go too fast. I wanted to try him on my bike with the K9 Cruiser. I clipped him to the short light tether, and slowly walked the bike around the back yard, encouraging him. He was fine! We went out front, and I tried riding slowly. He was fine! We went around a bit in front of the house, and he was doing great (he goes fast!). On my bike I have a rear-mirror positioned to let me know if the dog is happily going as fast as the bike, or if he's falling back in position a bit. This alerts me before he falls into a position where he'd be pulled at all by the bike. He loved it. We went all the way around the block, with cars passing us and everything. The only hiccup came when a neighbor wanted to say hi to him and even though the man was 12 feet away, he started to pull back and panic. He asked to be held, and I held him and he was fine (but we did not move any closer to the man, I didn't want to undo all our progress to date by overwhelming him). We said goodbye and I clipped him back up and we went on our way. He really impressed me with his progress, and frankly he showed a lot resilience in the presence of huge SUVs passing us. Good boy!

Day 6: morning

Einstein has had a history of keeping his distance from the people in the house, which is understandable given the chaos in his original home. But even in K's home (for 10 months) he would not come when called. So I'm working to interrupt that pattern. This morning, I put him on leash and brought him into the bed/bath area and closed the door so he had to hang out nearby while I showered and dressed. He was very polite, and it's just a habit, a routine, a pattern that has to be developed with him consistently over time. We had a 10-min. snuggle session on the sofa. He loves to be held, he looked truly blissful.

When he has the ability to keep his distance, he hangs out at the back of the group but won't come near, and if you try to approach him he'll run the other way. This is not a game. However if I grab a treat and say "kennel" he'll trot right into his crate. Then I can just clip a leash on him. It's important to break this long-held pattern he's had of being chased. I can call him to me with a treat, but he will not always stay near long enough for me to touch him and leash him. I hope to teach him a "sit on command" soon which ought to help.

His comfort level with the environment and with us is increasing rapidly. He's also barking enthusiastically when we come home. My neighbor (who's home during the day) has assured me that he is not a constant barker, the dogs have been snoozing each day unless someone comes up to the gate (and we do have a few dogs in the neighborhood who like to escape their yards and come visit my dogs through the gate).

If we could find an adoptive home that is really willing to be coached on how to integrate him, he would be adoptable right now in my opinion. We need someone who is willing to learn about dog training, and who is willing to work with him slowly.

Day 5: Evening

Wow! Things are going very well. Paris came over and E was MUCH more comfortable around her today, approached her more willingly, let her pet him, etc. The treats were flowing. See the photos in the links area on the right. Exciting!

Day 5: morning

We went on a short walk this morning, hoping to encounter some distractions in the environment that are just a "step up" from what we've encountered before. But the very noisy trash trucks were coming! I decided that even I was afraid of THAT much noise, so when they were about 5 houses away we turned back and walked home. He loves to take walks, and does not pull. So far we have not walked him with my other dogs, I want more control over being ready to give him treats as we encounter challenging/scary things in the environment.

I put the dogs in the yard and was getting dressed to get out the door for work when I heard them running and playing in the yard. E was playing with the other dogs. It was great to see.

Day 4 continued... evening

I've been walking around doing the "umbilical cord" with E tethered to me. He loves it. He sits next to my computer, and comes up and nudges me gently asking for attention.

The words I would use to describe him at this point are: willing to please, hesitant, tentative, curious, very sweet, and GENTLE.

His toileting habits are very good-- no accidents at all.

He is visibly warming up to Dennis, who feeds him his meals (his meals are tiny since he gets so many treats during training). Dennis has not tried to hold him yet, but I think we're almost ready for that. E loves to be held.

Panic!

We've had 2 mysterious episodes since E got here where he suddenly panicked and bolted. The first time, his 2nd day here, he was in his crate with the door open, and he had a longline attached (2 very thin light leashes connected together). The longline was secured to a heavy chair next to the crate. The idea was that he could come out of the crate and be in the room with us, but could not have full freedom.

The door to the back was open and was visible from his crate, but was out of reach. He suddenly bolted so fast and hard out of his crate that it bent the ring on his choke chain and the choke chain fell right off. He ran outside. We were stunned. It takes a LOT of force for that to happen. There was nothing obvious that triggered the episode. No noise, etc. Since he was so new here, we thought he wanted to get outside and made a mad dash for it. He came back to me with a treat, and I checked him- no injury. We repaired the choke chain.

Yesterday (day 4) I started to clicker train him and we were in the living room, the longline was on, again secured to a heavy chair. I was standing. He seemed less comfortable with me standing (it's a much more dominating position from his perspective). Suddenly he panicked, ran from me, got snapped back by the leash, cried out in terror and dashed into his crate (which was really NOT in reach, so he was being pulled hard on the buckle collar). I quickly released the longline to relieve the pressure on the collar, and sat in front of his crate and kind of talked to him. He settled down in the back of the crate, not wanting to come out. I didn't want a training session to end like this, it's important that they end on a very upbeat note. So I talked softly to him for few moments and then gave him a treat and gently took the leash and led him out of the crate. He came, but reluctantly. I started C/T-ing for short eye contact, and he brightened visibly, as though getting back into the game helped him forget his moment of terror. Boy, I wish I had a dog psychic who could tell me what was going on in E's mind.

Day 3 continued: Introducing the target stick

This is a photo of Kathy and Einstein the day she brought him over to us. You can see how bright and confident he is around her.

Last evening I introduced E to the target stick. It's a simple thin dowel, about 4 feet long. At the end, I taped a square of blue painter's tape, just to give something very definitive visually at the end of it.

The point of this silly stick is to teach the dog that if you touch this stick, you'll get a treat. We then use the stick as a tool to shape a bunch of other behaviors (jump up onto this table, heel, etc).

Karen Pryor can explain the training of a target better than I can. Click here for a great article from her.

E was definately performing the behavior in its first phase-- standing near the stick, looking at it, and occasionally touching it with his nose. All very good.

Later, my friend Paris (9 years old) who is really great with dogs came over to help me socialize E. He was very uncomfortable around her. She sat perfectly still, avoiding direct eye contact. He wanted to run. I would never pull him over to her and force the issue, that can permanently ruin a dog. For about 30 minutes she worked with him, holding cheddar cheese on her hand on the ground, staying perfectly still. He'd gingerly tiptoe up and take the cheese but was still very nervous. We had success but also realized that he needs a lot more work in this area. Whoever adopts him will need to be willing to rewind and probably repeat some of this process. My experience has been that once a Sheltie bonds to its owner, it grows in confidence and all of this comes faster. When K brought E over to our house the first time, and when he met me, was visibly better at meeting me (because of his bond with Kathy) than he was this time, meeting Paris. He stayed on my side (away from Paris), looked the other way, tried to pull away, and when he realized I wouldn't give him more leash, he asked to be held. That seemed to comfort him a lot. When I was holding him, he was actually closer to Paris than he was before (she and I were sitting on the ground right next to each other).

Paris's mother, Janet (also my friend), came over to help. Again, he was very scared. J sat quietly next to Paris. I took E behind them and held him and encouraged him to smell their backs and hair. We made a bit of progress. He was more willing to take a treat from Janet than from Paris-- this was probably due to his traumatic interactions with the child in his original home. Janet left. My friend Sandy came over, and we were all talking a bit and the talking and lack of focus on E seemed to actually relax him a bit. I held him a lot, too.

All in all, this kind of slow socialization is going to be very important for him. The problem is that the progress will "stick" more when it's done with his final owner, but I hope to at least establish some positive history with him while he's here.

So far, E has spent most of his time either in his crate, or out for short periods of training, exercise, and bodily functions. Now we'll work on having him spend more time out and about in the house with us.

We don't have a doggie door here, and we treat E as though he were a dog who was not housetrained-- though I firmly believe that if he can get outside he'll go in the right place. The problem comes when a dog doesn't know how to communicate to you that he needs to go. We have not established this yet with him. In our house, we hang a ribbon of jingle bells on the door to the backyard. Our dogs have been taught to bump it with their nose and jingle the bells when they want us to open that door for them. (This is something you teach using targeting. See article above).

So for the next few days, we'll have E out of his crate more, and we'll tether him to us. That simply means that he's on leash in the house, attached to me or Dennis at all times. This is known as the "umbilical cord" technique, and it serves two purposes. It accelerates the bonding between you and the dog, and it restricts his freedom such that he can't sneak behind the couch and have an accident. So it sets him up for success. And in our case, it forces him to interact more.

In K's household, he was out and about in the house all the time. So he's definitely used to that, it's not like he wants to stay in his crate all the time (though he does love his crate.) We're just rewinding to establish success in this new environment.

If you're not familiar with the value of crate training your dog, read this article here.

The clicker-lightbulb isn't on yet

When dogs are trained using clicker training, there comes a beautiful moment when the lightbulb goes on and they really understand that their behavior can control whether or not I click.

E doesn't get this yet (and that's OK, it's not unusual for a dog who has not been trained this way from the start to be a bit slower to "get it"). E came from an environment where he was constantly yelled at, and was not trained, and was afraid to make a mistake. He didn't know what to do, but chances are if he did something, he'd get yelled at.

In clicker training, we want a dog who is confident in offering you behaviors. He doesn't have to worry about getting yelled at or jerked with a choke chain or a prong collar, because if he doesn't get it right, the only consequence is that a reward fails to appear.

The reason we want it that way is that we want the dog to try new variations of the behavior in order to move it along to its final version. Example.... my dog Piper does a cute trick called "Bang". I make a gun with my hands, and point it at her and say "Bang". She lays down on her side, and covers her eyes with her paws. It's adorable. It also took an entire month to shape the whole chain of behaviors!

At one point, she understood that she was supposed to lay down on her side. Good. Now I needed her to take both paws up to cover her eyes. So even though I had been C/T-ing for the laying down part, now I was going to raise the bar and ask her to give me something slightly different so I could give her feedback (either a click, or the absence of a click) about whether that variation was in the right direction. Get it? It's like the game we used to play of hot and cold. Hot means you get a click and a treat. Cold means you don't get a click and a treat. Cold means try again, do something else. In Piper's case I would C/T for any tiny movement of her front paws toward her nose, or of her nose toward her paws (while she was down on her side). Then I required a slightly larger movement in order to C/T. The first time she got the paws up to the nose, she got a big jackpot! "Oh!", she seemed to think, "Is that what you wanted?"

At this point, E understands that the click means a treat is coming (which is great). My job now is to help him understand that his behavior can cause the click. I'll know this is happening when he proactively starts offering me behaviors that have resulted in clicks. He's giving me eye contact, so we're on the right road. I want to start working on something else too (sit) so I can see if he is really getting it. My sense is that right now, it's not a solid understanding.

Once a dog does get it, they progress very quickly and are able to understand that this game applies to a whole toolkit of behaviors.

Shelties circle a lot

Sheep herding breeds (Shelties, Aussies, German Shepherds, etc) really understand the value of a circle. Moving in a circle is something that has been bred into them pretty strongly.

I'm noticing that E likes to trot in a circle while he checks things out, while he thinks. I went home at lunch to put the dogs in. They were all sleeping by the gate, and E was in his crate (door open, also near the gate). They all jumped up to greet me, and E was happy and barking and was clearly greeting me. I went to the back yard to encourage everyone to eliminate. I sat on the patio and all my dogs came up to get pats and scratches and E circled the picnic table 5 feet away, assessing the situation, wanting to get near but not wanting to at the same time.

Once the other dogs stepped away from me, he came up and sniffed my back and hair, and stopped about 3 feet to my side. He let me reach out and scratch his chest. He stepped away again, circled the table a bit, and came back again. This time I encouraged him to come closer, he did, and he asked for more when I stopped scratching him. I pulled him into my lap which made him very happy.

We went into the house. I confined my dogs so I could train E. He was not on leash. As long as he was off leash, he trotted around, not coming too close, acting nervous toward me again. I was clicking and treating for eye contact but as long as he had this circling thing going on, the eye contact was too fleeting and I felt like I wanted to break this pattern. I got some good treats, lured him to me, and put the leash on him. I was sitting on the carpet. He layed down (C/T) and started giving me amazing eye contact. We're up to 5 seconds of sustained focused eye contact. Excellent.

So what I learned is that this is still a new situation, which makes him need the leash to be able to settle down and focus. Once that leash is on him, he's attentive. We'll take advantage of that during his sessions.

Treats? Mix it up a bit

Training tip: when giving treats, it's better if the dog is not sure exactly which treat is coming. Don't use the same stuff all the time. Make a "trail mix" of treats. My trail mix for E this afternoon consisted of 2 kinds of kibble, tiny bits of cheddar cheese, and tiny bits of Natural Balance (I cut the Natural Balance and the cheese into bits with a large chef's knife and keep it all in a plastic container. Each piece is about the size of a lentil. We're talkin' small! By keeping these treats all together, even the kibble absorbs some of the yummy flavor of the cheese and Natural Balance, giving it a higher value in the eyes of the dog.

In addition, it's best to "mix it up" when it comes to the way you deliver the treat. Sometimes, hand it directly to the dog. Sometimes toss it a few inches to the left. Sometimes toss it a few inches to the right. If your dog is likely to run after it, you can toss it low to the ground but far away, and let the dog chase after it. All of this makes it more interesting for the dog, and adds a variable that keeps them engaged in the game.

When the dog has accomplished something he's been struggling with, or when he does something that I really want him to notice, I give him a "jackpot"-- which could be a whole handful of treats. I save the jackpot to make a big point, because it makes a big impact on the dog.

Day 4- offleash, and a walk around the block

E is progressing very quickly. We now let him off leash in the house and back yard, going to and from the dog yard. His pattern is he trots around and keeps his distance, and if I stand still he'll approach up to about 3 feet from me. If I want him to come closer, I have to squat or sit, be still, and lure him with a treat. At that point I usually gently scratch his chest for a moment, and then very gently take his collar and put the leash on him. It's not OK with him to just reach out for him to put the leash on, he needs a softer approach.

He is not as comfortable with Dennis as he is with me. Den is doing all the right things, and E goes into his crate after Den takes him out to eliminate. Den rewards that, and it prevents a situation where Den is trying to catch E.

This morning at 6am I took E around the block for a walk, just the two of us. I wanted to see what minor distractions came up, and feed him really good treats to help him through them. With his previous foster mom, K, he'd be scared and wrap himself behind her legs when a car drove by. So I was ready. When a car drove by, I made sure he was busy nibbling a big piece of "Natural Balance" from my fingers. He was very aware of the car, but didn't bolt. I clicked and treated often as we went around the block. He likes to walk right next to me, he is not a puller. As his confidence grows he might go out ahead more, but for now he's right next to me. Distractions included: dogs barking, lawn sprinklers going on, cars going by, and a plastic bottle in the street which startled him when he smelled it and it moved and rolled. We spent a moment with that item, putting the treat right next to it, getting him to approach it again. Back at the house, a woman was walking down the street, we were in the driveway. He became pretty agitated, and wanted to retreat to the back yard. I shortened his leash and pulled out good treats and got him through it. It's clear he needs to meet a LOT more people. After she passed by, I sat on the driveway, and he asked to be held. I pulled him into my lap and he was very happy.

His eye contact with me is improving and I continue to click and treat that. He offers me eye contact often now.

It's also clear that he feels secure in our house and with the other dogs. The routine is different today-- we're leaving the dogs outside, and I watched from inside for a few minutes. (His crate is out there, too, with its door propped open for him in case he wants to retreat.) He wanted back in the house, coming to the door and looking in several times. He didn't like being out there without me. After a few minutes he seemed to relax a bit. I saw him trotting around the yard in the back, and when he saw me in the window he became very happy, barked, and danced around. Tail up, happy. I'll go back to the house at 1pm and put them in the house for the rest of the day.

At this point, I would assess E's condition as being on par with the first Sheltie I ever had, who came to me at 12 months old from a breeder. He had not been socialized and was afraid of everything, and like E, he progressed quickly as we gave him the security of some structure and gentle treatment. Shelties (and most "sheep herding breeds") are very sensitive dogs, and if they have a "soft" personality they require very gentle handling. This does not mean they've been abused, it just means that they're very sensitive. My first Sheltie went from being totally skitzy to becoming secure and confident, to becoming a certified therapy dog and excelling in obedience. So I want to emphasize the potential I see in E. He's not the kind of dog who is going to move into a new home and look around and say, "OK, I'm home, where's my ball". He needs to know that he's wanted, he wants to know the routine, and he's tentative. That will decrease as he settles in here, but I do expect his new home to have to go through this process with him again. He'll probably progress faster in his new home, since he's had more experience (more POSITIVE experience!).

In terms of obedience, this morning I introduced "come", luring him with a treat while I back up a few steps. Now that he's feeling at home here, it's time to step up the obedience training.

By the way, E is wearing a buckle collar and a choke chain. I don't like choke chains, and this dog is so sensitive that if he even steps on his lightweight nylon leash, he sort of shuts down and thinks you're the one restricting him. So since we have him dragging a leash around still (a very thin light nylon leash), I don't want him to accidentally get a choke correction if he steps on it. But if you've got a dog that might bolt (and we always plan for that) he can back his head out of a buckle collar on a leash (Shelties have narrow heads). So what I do is clip the leash to his buckle collar, AND to the choke chain link as an emergency backup plan. If for some reason he bolts backward while on leash, and slips out of his buckle collar, as he moves backwards it should engage the choke chain and stop him. Otherwise, the choke chain is prevented from engaging. (This is easier to understand when you see it in person.)

Day 2

Dennis fed E a bit of kibble in his crate for breakfast, and took him out with our other dogs to eliminate. Back in the crate for a bit.

I got up and took him out again, to the fenced-off dog yard so I could let him offleash there. I walked around a bit to encourage him to go. He didn't need to go again. I went over the clean "safe to sit down" area, and sat on the ground. He hopped around like a colt, clearly wanting to initiate play. He gave a little bark, the first sound we've heard out of him at all. He trotted around the perimeter of the dog-yard, just burning off some steam (not trying to escape). He was clearly happy.

I encouraged him (very softly) to come to me, and slowly reached out and scratched his chest and then took his collar and clipped the leash to it. Again, I took him into my lap for a moment, and he loved it. I stroked him and praised him, and gently put him out of my lap so I could get up. He stopped for a long drink of water, and then back into the house and into the crate.

I confined my dogs so I could train E without the others clammoring for their turn. (Everyone loves a training session in this house). I took E outside to the back yard, where the distraction level is higher than where we've trained so far (2 different rooms in the house). We worked on eye contact again. He is very food motivated, so he loves this game. I was sitting on the ground, holding the plastic bin of treats. He pawed at it and tried to push my hand off the top with his nose. He gently took the rim with his teeth and tried to pull. He finally figured out that he could only get the treats if he earned them. But boy does he want them! There were lots of sounds (people walking by, a squirrel racing across the roof) so it was a big deal for him to keep the game up with all the distraction.

In clicker training, when we "raise the bar" of distraction, we lower the bar of the other criteria (length of time eye contact must be sustained). So in other words, because it was a more distracting spot, he only had to glance at me to earn a treat. Later, we'll make him sustain it for longer.

Back into his crate, and off to work for me. My husband is working from home today so we can ease E into having longer periods of time in the yard.

Einstein's first day-- introducing the clicker

Kathy arrived with Einstein (E) at 10am. We were very structured about how we brought him in. Since dogs do better with new dogs if they meet on "neutral" territory we did not want to just walk E into the house. We kept him in his crate in K's car, and one by one I brought my dogs on leash out to sniff him, and to let him sniff them. Great, no reaction other than curiosity. So far so good.

Kathy stayed awhile and we walked E around the yard, and through the house. We sat outside in the shade and my dogs layed down, indicating peaceful contentment. He seemed a bit clingy to Kathy but not badly. She held him a bit and encouraged him to sniff around. He was on leash at all times!! The last thing you want at the beginning is a "bolting" incident where he dashes away and is scared to come to you. While K and I were sitting talking, she quietly handed the end of the leash to me, and now I was on the other end of his leash. No problem. I got down on the ground and did not invade his space-- I averted my eyes a bit and let him come up and sniff me. This let me present myself in a nonthreatening manner, which put him at ease.

After awhile of that, when things seemed to be getting nice and boring, we moved into the house. He hopped up onto a chair (OK with us) and again K gave me the end of the leash. We continued talking, and he curled up in the chair with his chin on the arm. K quietly got up and went into the other room where she could hear me easily. He watched her go and I gently stroked his chest, which he liked. He relaxed (hooray, great sign). I sat on the carpet in front of the chair and he smelled my hair, and if I stopped touching him he asked me to keep going, which I did. I quietly asked K to tiptoe in and see this, which she did. She was happy to see him transitioning so well. So she came in again, stayed for a moment, and went out again. Again, he was curious and watched her go but was OK with my attention. She came back in, and then after a few more minutes went out and brought his crate (with his bed) in. Earlier we had clipped together 2 very lightweight leashes, so we had a lightweight longline. This was attached to his chain collar.

We said goodbye, and let E rest a bit and just observe the new situation from the comfort of his crate. He went into his crate voluntarily, and we kept the leash on him, letting the end trail out of the crate, and we closed the door on it. That way when I want him to come out, I'm not sticking my hands and arms into his crate, possibly scaring him. I just take the end of the leash, open the crate, and encourage him out. If he needs more, I can give a very gentle tug on the leash.

He has been walked back to the "potty yard" area twice but won't go there yet. I took him out onto the front grass and he immediately did his business there. Again, this is all on leash. He is going to be on leash at all times for the first few days AT LEAST.

It was time for dinner for the dogs. We fed ours, and I crated them to have some uninterrupted time with E to introduce him to the meaning of the click. I tongue-click (like you do when you want to giddyup a horse) because I always have that handy to mark a good behavior (producing a click at the exact moment of desired behavior is called "marking" a behavior. It identifies for the dog what behavior produced the click, which in turn produces a treat!).

To introduce the association of click=treat-about-to-come, it's very simple. You just click and drop a treat in front of the dog. The dog is not paying attention to the sequence yet, but is happy totake up the treat. You do this several times, tossing the treat a few inches over here, a few inches over there.... and after about 25 repetitions, when you click and the dog is looking around on the floor for where the treat went, you know you've got the association you want. Voila! E caught on very quickly.

I do not talk during training (at this stage) because it would be very distracting to the dog. I want him to understand the simple relationship between the click and the treat, without a lot of superfluous chatter on my part.

I put him back in his crate for 15 minutes to let the learning that just occurred have a chance to solidify in his mind. This happens at a subconscious level. Now that he understands that the click preceeds a treat, I will use the timing of click to deliberately increase certain behaviors. Usually we choose just one behavior to work on during each short little training session. In my case, I'm going to click/treat (C/T) for either of two behaviors-- voluntarily stepping out of his crate toward me, and/or making eye contact with me (even if just for a fleeting moment). Both of these teach him to pay attention to me, to focus on me.

Again, the light leash is still on him the whole time. I'm sitting on the sofa near his crate, the door is open, and he is inside. I start by clicking a putting a treat inside, then clicking and putting a treat closer to the door, and once he's taken that one, I click and put one on the edge of the doorway, then just outside, etc. At first he reaches his nose out and takes the treat just outside the crate, and we do that for a few reps, and then I put one far enough out that he has to touch a foot to the carpet. We go slowly. Now two feet, now a step out, then back into the crate. But he comes out quickly this time, and is willing to take a few steps out. Now back into the crate. Pretty soon, he's out of the crate, walking 2 feet to the right of it to retrieve his treat. Now just to mix it up I toss a treat in the other direction, 7 inches or so to the left of the crate. He slides back into the crate to think about this for a moment, and then goes out and finds the treat. Again, I toss to the right, he gets it, I toss to the left, and he slides into the crate to process this change, and then goes out and gets it. Next time I toss to the left, he goes there directly, no need to retreat to the crate to absorb this change. So that means he is adapting to change pretty quickly. Very good. Preceding each treat is a click, even though I'm not writing that for you each time here. Got it?

During this exercise, I would C/T any fleeting glance to my face. Soon he was looking me straight in the eye (for a moment) and I was very pleased with our progress. This whole thing took about 5 minutes. I ended the session by saying "Good boy, that's all for now" and leading him into his crate with a kibble. Time for another 15 min. rest.

Now we move to a new location, a room about 15 feet from his crate. He looked back toward the crate a few times as if to ask to be returned to that area. I sat on a chair and waited for a glance in my direction, which I got pretty quickly, and off we went, clicking and treating for more and more and more repetitions of eye contact. Any urge to retreat to the crate seemed to disappear for him as he immersed himself in this now-familiar game which resulted in lots of prizes for him. I got him up to a bit over a full second of sustained eye contact with ears up, a look of total interest. I also started saying his name as he gave me this attention. Excellent progress. We ended the session, back into the crate to let it solidify for a few minutes. Again, this last session was approximately 5 minutes long. At this point, he has had about a full cup of "small bite" high quality kibble, which is his dinner, so you can see how many repetitions we did, and how many rewards he got (lots!).

If a full second of eye contact seems trivial, keep in mind that this is a dog that came into rescue terrified of the world, and he just left the only two people he had ever trusted. For him to be voluntarily coming out of his crate and giving me this kind of attention and eye contact (which is a sign of assertiveness, too), is a big deal for his first day. I'm really impressed with him.

Temperament-wise, E is what we call a "soft" dog. He is trying to please, he is not wanting to challenge anyone and he is very very gentle. When he takes a tiny treat from my fingers, he does it with such delicacy. He licked my hand ever so lightly. So for the first few days, we want to ensure a quiet, gentle atmosphere for him, too. When I touch him, I do it very gently and slowly. We've kept the sounds around the house soothing and quiet today. Usually, after a few weeks a dog starts to show his true personality and we expect the more boisterous side of E to come out later. Soft dogs can be easily overwhelmed, they're the kind of dogs who crumble if you raise your voice to them. So a peaceful environment is always a good thing to provide in the very beginning of a dog's transition.

By the end of the evening, E was happily in my lap, soaking up affection. I kept my energy quiet and gentle. He successfully did his business in the dog yard, but I had to "fence" it off with an ex-pen to keep him in the area. That, plus my other dogs setting the example, let him know that this was the place where it was OK to go. I did let him off leash in this confined area, because I could tell he wanted to go out away from me to defecate. Success! We gave him another chance to urinate at 10:30pm and then put him in his crate for the night. He slept quietly all night.

What is clicker training?

Clicker training is a fun and easy to use method of training that uses positive reinforcement (rewards and treats) to encourage and shape desired behaviors in the dog. We communicate to the dog what it did correctly, and then we give a reward. This results in more of that behavior. Behavior that gets rewarded increases in frequency (this has been scientifically proven for decades, it's not a theory).

We want the dog to know exactly what behavior it's getting rewarded for. In order to make that very specific and very important connection in its brain, we choose a special sound that we only use for this purpose. In my case, I tongue-click at the exact moment of the desired behavior, and then immediately give the dog a treat (and it has to be a treat that the dog really likes).

Over time we raise our expectations for the behavior (ie, "sit for one minute in the kitchen" evolves to "sit for one minute at Starbucks", which is a much harder behavior since it involves more distraction and temptation). We do this slowly! We do it methodically. It's easy to do, it just requires some effort and a deliberate training plan.

Over time we also decrease the dependence on the treats. We do not end up with a dog who will only behave if you give it treats. The details for this are more complex than I want to explain here. But please know that we do wean them off of the need for constant reinforcement once the behavior is nice and solid.

Once a dog knows its set of desired behaviors very well, once those "muscles" so to speak have been developed, it's easier for that dog to "generalize" and perform those behaviors for a new person. But the reality is that anyone adopting Einstein is going to need to be interested in learning the basics of dog training. He deserves that much.

If you'd like to look at some great videos and free articles about clicker training, start by going to Karen Pryor's website. She's my hero!

Getting ready for Einstein

Spoke last night with Kathy Parsons, the wonderful woman who runs Sheltie Rescue in southern California. She asked me to take over the fostering and training of a sable and white Sheltie named Einstein. He was purchased as a pup from a pet store by a woman who had an autistic son and who later had another baby. By the time the 2nd baby was 2 years old the owner was at the end of her rope, overwhelmed with the challenges of caring for her family. The dog had not been socialized or trained, and due to the chaotic nature of the home environment, he was skittish and fearful.

Kathy took him in and gave him room and time to learn to trust her. He was initially terrified. 10 months later, he has flourished in her household. In order to prepare him to be adopted out to a "forever home", we want to have him transfer to another foster home (ours) where we will develop the following:
- his ability to trust people other than his immediate foster mom
- basic obedience skills, using the positive reinforcement approach of clicker training
- impulse control (this means we'll be helping him to break some habits he's developed, such as racing around the yard whenever he goes outside, trying to hide behind his foster mom when a car goes by while out on a walk... we'll be developing his confidence out in public and his maturity).

Kathy is prepping a rag with her scent on it to leave with us when she brings him over on Sunday. She'll bring us "his" crate, and bed, so he can have as smooth a transition as possible. We're making sure we have the kind of food he's used to eating, to help him avoid the digestive issues that often happen when a dog is moved from one home to another.

We're preparing to create a structured environment, to give him a few quiet days to observe the new group and the new routine, before we ask anything of him. During this phase, he'll be on leash at all times in the house and in the yard, so we have complete control over him. We'll also introduce him to the clicker with high-value treats, and establish the association between the clicker and rewards. We might start to reward for eye contact. Because this dog will be upset to leave Kathy, we are taking steps backwards to re-establish success on behaviors he's already accomplished. We're setting him up for success, and we are happy and excited to welcome him into our home, love him and train him, and help him forward on his journey.